About the Project
The book in its original state before any destruction, damage or decoration.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s Book Project
The concept for the Breakfast at Tiffany’s Book Project is a combination of various ideas and curiosities I have collected over time.
Firstly, the book is a classic. Written in 1958 by Truman Capote and made into a film directed by Blake Edwards in 1961. Upon mention of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, most of us will instantly visualise the iconic image of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. You know the one, she’s in that black Givenchy number with those fabulous pearls around her neck. Heck, even if you haven’t seen the film you will know exactly what image I’m referring to. It’s no secret that I love the book and the film. I even chose it as one of the books for my book club #thejulietbookreport in 2018. Holly Golightly is my kindred spirit, also, anything set in New York instantly has my heart and attention.
Secondly, on a trip to Sydney in 2019, I went on a tour of the State Library of NSW. If you’re ever in the area, I totally recommend doing the tour. You’ll learn about the architecture, it’s history and you’ll see their cool Shakespeare Room. However my favourite part was getting to see the Friends Room. This is a room only accessible by people who pay for a membership called ‘Friends of the Library.’ In this room you can sit and read and have tea or coffee which is provided by the library. The room isn’t very big but the walls are lined with these amazing cabinets that are about the height of an average human. The cabinets are filled with 1100 editions of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Creating this collection became a hobby of Dr Ben Haneman who was a well known wealthy Sydney physician. In 1997 the entire collection was donated to the State Library of NSW. After seeing Dr Haneman’s collection, it made me wonder which book I wouldn’t mind having 1100 copies of. The first book that came to mind was Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Thirdly, some time last year, I wanted to tear pages from a magazine so that I could stick them up on my inspiration wall. You know like that time you were a 13 year old, Hanson obsessed teen, and filled an entire wall with images of Taylor Hanson (or maybe was that just me?) The problem I had here as an adult was that my magazine pages are precious. There was no way I could imagine tearing out the pages recklessly like 13 year old Juliet would have done. This is until I realised, duh, a magazine only costs about 8 bucks, just buy another one to use and abuse, and still have a perfect one in your archive. And that’s when it clicked that I could do the same with books.
And lastly, I’ve recently been noticing that I have a particular interest in documenting change, deterioration and evolution. I have also been thinking of ways to evolve my art and create more complex and interesting art pieces. All this, combined with the idea that it would be fun to freak some book nerds out by bringing unnecessary harm to books, would be a fun new project to embark on.
Somehow, in that way that ideas tend to form, all these thoughts combined to become this Breakfast at Tiffany’s Project. The idea of the project is to destroy, damage and decorate the books. One new book per process. The processes are sometimes inspired by the text and sometimes they are not. At this stage I don’t have a number of books in mind, I’ll just keep going until I either get bored or run out of ways to DDD (destroy, damage, decorate) the books. I will document each process and illustrate the cover and pages 40-41. I’ve chosen these pages because I believe the quote on those pages is the essence of what ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ is all about.
Like the object in the project is evolving, so is the idea. The only constant will be that I will purchase the exact edition of the book. That being the Popular Penguin Classics edition with the orange and cream cover with black text. These editions are readily available, recognisable and affordable, so it was the most logical option.
NOTES:
I went on the Free Heritage Tour at the State Library of NSW
Find out here about the: State Library of NSW Friends of the Library Membership
What is a Hanson? Hanson MMMBop Taylor is the one with the longest hair
